Christopher Columbus High School - Anchor Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

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lor Regents twasn'l that English a corlcer?l and the G. O. dances mixed in with Spanish coaching. Ann, l hope you're saving that shot of all ol us when we were rigged up lor the prom. I want il lor evidence that we're the same gang that stampeded the lunch- room in search ol twofthirds ol a chair. l can still see the loolc ol the faculty when we waltzed hy. They couldn't lit us in with the kids who had been malcingxtheir lives miseralale with Senior dues, Senior hats, Senior yearhoolcs, in lact, just Seniors. Comes graduation. and where are we? Up on the Paradise stage, ol coursel True, it was only lor an uExcellence in Government, hut our lollcs were as proud as il we had delivered the valedictory address in Latin. Yes. Angel, it was a swell lour years. and l hope that future graduating classes will have the same lun as we got out ol the husiness. All they have to rememher is that they should not hand a teacher the same excuse twice. that they must salaam speedily when the captain ol the monitors approaches, and that Senior pictures aren't meant to he llattering, anyway. Say Hello to the gang lor me .... Peter. MARILYN KARB'IASON l proudly lneam. my eyes are hright, Did you aslc why, my friend? Then wait a while and just sit tight, Your ear I'Il gently bend. I-light terms ago. so meelc was l, l shoolc at every sight. ln class and halls l dared not sigh, Did homeworlc every night. Then slow hut sure l too grew sly, At teachers l did grin. f Ol' priceless males l was not shy, I wore a G.O. pin. The happy clay l was a soph, J brlllt world VVHS illl HQIOXV, 0 At lowly lreshies l could scolll, .o ,ff Q0 ,o To class l not go, . v-- lo - 0 0 On top at last l am today. ' I . '.', . f Q - ' ' O .'0' - ' : 'Q ' 1. lVly teachers gasp negadln , I thinlc now l can safely say, dcosh all the lun I haclln ' BELLA CONTRASTANO 29

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REMINISCENCES He was just one of the feiiows sitting on his hunk Hsomewhere in the Pacific, writing to his hest girl. He doesnxt present such a striking picture-a dark-haired hoy, not much more than 18, average height, not had-looking. He might he the ex-student of any high school of the 48 states, hut the ioiue and silver Major MCH stamps him as being a Coiumhusite-prohahiy one of the many who joined Uncle Sam soon after receiving their diplomas. His eyes have that far-away took in them. His mouth, turning up at the corners, further testiilies that he's thinking of those days Hhack whenf' His letter runs this way: Dear Ann, That picture you sent iast week was just what I needed-next to a furlough! But what's that thing on your head-a Senior hat? It doesn't resemhie that Con- federate affair that I sported a while hack. Just looking at the contraption makes me think of the four years at Coiumhus. especially that F. F. D. tFatai First Day to youj. I het I was the greenest freshie that ever went up to the Hopen-air cafeterian on the fifth Hoor. You can kid ati you want, hut how about you and the private ioeauty parlor on the second iioor. I suppose it ati goes to show what we expected from Cotumhus hack in those days. But we learned, we learned .... Then those program cards'-the Worid's Eighth Vvonderi i can stiii see you waiting, uBeiieve me. I haven,t learned to read Greek yetin Thanks to a couple of kind-hearted Seniors tthere were some in those daysj, We managed to get to classes those first six months. tixfiayhe they weren't so kind. come to think of it., The cafeteria-the haven of the oppressed and the cutter. Something teiis me that if your mother,s second cousinys nephew hadn't heen so chummy with the monitor, we'd never have gotten to explore the depths of a Columbus sandwich. Too had we didn't know about the magic of service passes in the early days. I hunkediinto Donnie some time ago. He was one ofthe fellows in the chorus of the Hvvhite Company. We were jawing ahout one thing and another, hut we decided that nothing could compare to that show. Too had we didn't have another one like it. That was the one thing that made our soph year shine. Vvasnyt it when we were Joyous Juniors that we were interviewed for the Senior Arista? I never thought that such hig words couid ever come out of me. But seventh term had its compensations. No longer did milk lines present unsurmountaioie obstacles. Little monitors dared not stop us in the hails for passes. For they. too. reaiized that in a short span of time. we would hecome,-f,-- 'Superstratospheric Seniors! tAt this point. piease have iVir. Trunz' hugie- hoy give out with a long hiastj There we were with those caps at ati angles and our heads in the ciouds. The caps'-or so we thought'-were our tickets to go up the down staircase, elevator passes when it was too hot to ciimh from the basement to the fourth. and invitations to lead any activity in which there happened to he un- fortunate undergraduates. The Hy in my Senior ointment was that famous fintamous?j Dawn patrol. just to pass your house on a dark. coid morning when I knew that you were stiii sleeping made me wonder if even a Senior hat was worth the sacrifice. Activities would have heen great. hut Senior Day got rotted up in cramming Z8

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OUR WCRLD l toolc a train ride the other day. As the train sped hy, l noticed narrow streets. dirty tenements. and wet wash hanging in hack yards. l saw children playing in the streets: and as the train pulled into a station, l noticed a little girl suclcing a lollipop. l loolced down at two hoys fighting fiercely, tumloling over and over each other, and then l could see no more. l passed a movie house advertising three features for a quarter, and l saw peddlers pushing carts ahout. l had often ridden past these streets, holding my head up in contempt of their squalor and dirt and noise, lout now l couldn't help wondering if something couldn't he done. l was trouhled. l drew my eyes from the window and focused them on the craclcs in my shoe. l thought aloout the war, ahout the lbomloing of Berlin and Tolcyo, and about my lorother, who had been in the service for two years. l wondered when it would all he over. l thought about my own world, the friends l lcnew, the party l was going to on Saturday night, my graduation in dune. The rhythm of the train lulled me, and l closed my eyes and leaned laaclc. The darlcness was a relief which seemed to separate me from the rest of the world .... The first thing l thought about was the end of the war. dust the thought brought a sense of warmth and comfort. l imagined a world secure from all wars. and then l thought of what l, a member of the future generation, could do to help bring this ahout. Then my thoughts returned to the war, heing fought today to prepare tomorrow for me and others like me. After it's all over, they'll say, K'l'lere. lt's your world now. lr'lI he a new, scientific world. There'll he broader and cleaner streets. Tf1CT6,Il he plastics, television, air travel, and even nylons and unrationed gasoline. But thereill also he people. And with the people will come the same fundamental problems which have heen faced and puzzled over generation after generation. How shall we solve the prejudice, intolerance, and social persecution found Within the hounds of our own country, our own city, our own town? How shall we malce the world a place where every human has enough to eat, to wear, and to spend? How can we insure, for all, the opportunity to worlc? How can we provide freedom from fear and insecurity? Here, lt's your world, they'll say. And it will he. And those will he our prohlems. And those will he the prohlems we will solve, slowly and tediously, hut surely, using the lcnowledge and power we will have, for we lcnow we'll have to malce it more than just a modern and scientific world .... l felt laetter, and as the train hurried on through the darlcness. l experienced that exuherance which tiashes through the mind for a split second, and then dis- appears again into nothing. JEAN FINK 30